Richmond Noir Page 4

  At his back, behind the bleachers, ran Union Street. Two blocks down, past the elementary school, stood the saltbox house where he grew up. He didn’t need to look to know it was there. Everything in Sandston lasted, another genius of the place. While the airport had been updated enough to get a new address, the little burg itself was designed to be timeless. Sandston existed in baseball fields and playground, VFW, dentist and barber, tack shop, elementary school, and several hundred houses too simple and affordable to ever be without some humble resident or other. All stood along roads with monikers that centuries would surely not pry away, named after the generals blue and gray who in 1862 struggled for this land, wooded then, during the Seven Days Battle. Jackson, Sedgwick, Magruder, Pickett, Garland, Finley, Naglee, Mc-Clellan, every street sign a banner to everlasting honor But he’d left Sandston.

  He wore no hat. The sun made him wince. He sweated and bore the unstinted summer and hot metal bleachers, no money for a soda, no care for the families of Sandston.

  The afternoon aged, pinking toward dusk without cooling. Someone on the sidewalk behind the stands spoke his name, in a question, recognizing him without certainty. “Carl?” He did not turn to look. The inquiry died.

  He stayed in the bleachers past the time when the field emptied, the snow cone stand shuttered, and the game and crowd were echoes in his head. The midsummer sun vanished but took another hour to pull dusk down behind it. A block away, the last tennis players quit from the dark. Once the pulses of their game stilled and the streets were vacant, Carl came down.

  He rummaged through a big trash can for bottles of water, soda cans with flat remnants in the bottom, cups with water from melted ice still in them. He drank what he could find, but would not eat thrown-away food. He did not parse himself for hypocrisy. Some things were beneath him, some were not.

  He moved away from the trash can and the flies drawn to it, returning to the bleachers. He did not climb up but sat under them, cross-legged like a Buddha with candy wrappers and napkins. Overhead, the bleacher seats blocked the stars like drawn blinds.

  Carl stared only at the home across the street.

  He had nothing. This suited him, because he wanted nothing.

  No, there was one thing he had. It, itself, was multifaceted. He had hunger, but he was accustomed to it so it felt separate from him, like an item in his pocket. He had pain; this was diffuse, also familiar, and would go away soon, tonight. He had returning memories of the little ball field, these hot stands, his name called not cautiously but loudly so he could hear it out on the field, running hard to catch a ball or score. Lots of people cheering. The memories had no shelf or cubby inside him where he could tuck them away to wait until he was better. The images continued to rise, going the opposite direction of the sun. Tiny desks inside the elementary school, the tennis courts behind the VFW, parents wearing caps of their sons’ teams, lawn chairs, chain-link fences separating small backyards in the Sandston neighborhood behind him. He tried closing his eyes against the old scenes. Instead, the emptiness beneath his lids made a canvas for the hunger and pain, both patient, so he opened his eyes and submitted to the memories. They were the thing he had.

  Then, to balance and return to zero, there was one thing he wanted. Tonight.

  He’d been in that house once. He did some quick math to figure out how long ago, nineteen years. Nothing had changed about it: the clipped hedge on both sides of the flagstone sidewalk still led to concrete steps, the house was scaled with weathered gray siding, the window mullions painted white, the door scarlet, a plastic wreath hung around the pineapple brass knocker. Inside, he recalled doilies. Hook rugs, flowery fabrics, a cool checkerboard of black-and-white linoleum on the kitchen floor. When he was nine, it was an old lady’s house.

  He’d been inside because he’d hurt himself here, on the ball field. He’d tripped on the base path, rounding second, trying to be fast like a Yankee or a Cardinal. He’d skinned his knee and his palms, and ripped his uniform pants. The fall coated him with the red dirt of the infield and he was shamed at being tagged out, sitting between second and third, sucking his teeth, clutching a stinging knee to his chest. His coach yelled from the dugout, “What were you thinking?” The umpire made a fist in the air to say, You’re out.

  He could get up but he wanted to sit and cry, to cover his mistake. No one offered him a hand from the other team, and his coach shouted, “Come over here!” The umpire walked away, back to first base, because there were two outs and no one left on base. Carl had hit a double and was stretching it into a triple when his feet tangled. Someone should give a guy a hand up when he does that, even when he doesn’t make it.

  The whole ball field went silent. Carl heard a crow, that’s how quiet it was that day.

  The metal bleachers sounded a slow drumbeat, hollow and dirgeful. Mrs. Wilcox stepped down them, resolute. She strode out of the bleachers, away from all the others who would not stand and who had shouted at him for making an out. She was a tall, pale, gaunt woman. He did not know her first name but believed it was Agnes, Mildred, or Virginia, something austere.

  Mrs. Wilcox walked onto the field. She looked nowhere but at him. No one, not even his coach, shouted at her When she reached him, she did not bend but sent down an open hand. He took it and was lifted to his feet. The torn knee smarted and dirt clung in the scrapes on his palms, but he walked with her hand-in-hand away from the game, across the street, into her house.

  “You were showing off,” she said, pulling out a kitchen chair.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And you see where that got you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She disappeared, to return with a bottle of iodine and a box of Band-Aids.

  “Roll those pants up.”

  He did so gingerly, loosing dirt from his uniform onto her kitchen floor.

  “I’ll get that,” she said. “Come on.”

  She soaked a washcloth, then took the chair beside him. She patted her lap, for him to lift his leg up. He did. Her leg under his did not feel so bony as he’d figured it might. She patted clean his scrape. When the blood and infield dirt were wiped off, the wound looked like claw marks, little trenches that filled with blood again. Mrs. Wilcox pressed the washcloth over his knee and watched his face for a reaction. He gritted his teeth and looked down.

  When she pulled away the cloth, the gouges stayed white. “There, now.”

  She coated iodine over the cuts, blowing while she painted. Then she moved him to the sink, washed his hands, and dabbed the slices on both his palms with more iodine.

  When she was done and the throbs in all his wounds eased, she stood back, hands on hips. She towered.

  “Back to the field with you.”

  “You came to the game.”

  “It’s right across the street from my house. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve seen a few of your games, Carl. I like to keep up with my favorite students.”

  “I was your favorite?”

  “One of my favorites.”

  She walked him to the front door. He went out first and held the screen door for her to follow. She stayed behind.

  “You go ahead,” she said. “Finish up. I’ll see another game.”

  He looked into the white bottom of her chin. Her open hand floated to the top of his head to lift his ball cap. Mrs. Wilcox rubbed his crown.

  “Mrs. Wilcox?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will I have you again in fourth grade?”

  “No.”

  She handed him back his cap.

  “Go on,” she said. “And don’t worry. You can come see me anytime.”

  He touched his own head now, beneath the bleachers, watching the dark windows of her house.

  He crawled from under the stands, ducking the crossbars, and walked onto the diamond. The dimensions struck him, how small the field was. He sat in the red dirt between second and third, feeling gargantuan. He thought
of his old coach and teammates, wondering where any of them were today. Did he get lost, to know nothing of them anymore? Were their lives so different from his, that they never crossed paths? Surely, he thought. He grew irritated, that he should be the one to consider himself lost. Why him? He was the one stretching a double into a triple. He fell, but he was the one. They were the lost boys. They never went for it.

  An ache brought his hand to his gut. The last time he sat here, he hurt too. He rose, and like he did long ago, walked with his pain off the field, across the street.

  He stopped in front of her home. He cased the house in a minute. One story, probably two bedrooms. No bars or electronic alarms. No lights inside, no car parked in front. He slid along a wall to the backyard. No doghouse or pet toys on the grass. He crept up the back steps to peer inside the kitchen door. No dishes in the sink or on the counter, nothing on the table, the same table where she’d painted him with iodine and blown on it. Curtains drawn against the summer sun.

  He sucked one deep breath, considering another way to go. Walk off. Choose something else. That was the difference, he thought. Choice. He did not have it. In the end, that was what set him apart from everyone else. It made him innocent too. He took from his pocket a small flashlight. With the butt, he tapped the pane closest to the doorknob, just hard enough to break it.

  The glass rived into fissures. He paused to see if any light or sound came from inside. He flung his eyes to the neighbors’ yards, checking for lights flicked on, any attention paid to the suspicious noise he’d just made. Nothing. He returned to the broken pane. The house remained dark. He pushed in one crack; a lone shard grinded and gave way, to break on the kitchen floor with a tinkle. He pulled to him more swords of glass, until he had enough room to reach his hand inside to the locked bolt and doorknob.

  He stepped on tiptoes into Mrs. Wilcox’s house. The only glow came from a digital clock on the stove. He laid the sharp bits of broken glass in the trash can, and with the flashlight in his teeth chased down the busted pieces on the floor.

  He quickly found the first thing he needed, a cloth grocery bag. Keeping the flashlight from straying across the curtains and Levolor blinds, he surveyed the kitchen. It matched his memory; a few new knickknacks had been added, but the layout, the tile floor, the feel, remained unaltered. He opened and closed a few drawers. There’d be nothing of value in this room, but he lingered until he caught himself running his hand over the kitchen chairs.

  He moved into the den, careful with the flashlight beam. Just as on the ball field across the street, he felt huge against this room. The feeling swept not only out of his recollection, when he’d been so much smaller, but now, as a trespasser.

  The shelves and tabletops in the den offered nothing he could sell. Mrs. Wilcox’s own memories were on display, in pictures and bric-a-brac. He cursed under his breath before shining the light on one silver cup, engraved with an acknowledgment of forty-three years’ teaching in Henrico County. There was her first name, Julia. He never would have guessed. He dropped the cup in the sack. Keeping his touch light, he slid open the drawer of a side table.

  “I don’t have any jewelry.”

  He whirled, shining the flashlight straight at her She stood in pink nightclothes, barefoot, her long hand on the wall of the arch leading to the hall.

  “I do have two gold fillings.” She shuffled forward. He left Sandston Elementary sixteen years ago; he had not seen her again until now. She remained taller than him. She said, “But if you were a dentist, I doubt you’d be breaking into people’s homes.”

  Mrs. Wilcox felt her way through the room, one arm outstretched. She dodged a table and lamp to deposit herself on an easy chair, which rocked back when she sat; a pad lifted under her feet. The chair was a recliner.

  “Go ahead,” she said, wagging the back of a hand at him across the little room. “I can’t be expected to sleep while I’m being robbed.”

  He aimed the flashlight directly into her face. Crinkles creviced her eyes and the circumference of her mouth. Her face was spotty and white like a full moon. She didn’t flinch.

  “Did you call the police?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I honestly do not possess one item that anyone could find a reason to steal. And I do not want the ruckus the police will bring with them. So, grab whatever you think will have value. I likely won’t miss it.”

  He took steps toward her, not on tiptoes now, searching her with the flashlight beam. She held no phone, no weapon. Her nightdress exposed her contours, breasts sagging at her age; she concealed nothing. She wore no necklace or bracelet. Her arms and legs in the sallow light were paler than he recalled. Her hair, cut short, had gone snowy.

  So had her eyes.

  He strode to within a few steps of her. He wavered the light across her eyes. They did not blink or follow.

  “You’re blind.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happened?”

  “The sugar diabetes.”

  “When?”

  “Took awhile.”

  He waggled the light again, disbelieving. She did not register, but lifted her gaze to where she approximated his head must be. She missed, looking just to the left of his face, and this was disconcerting.

  She said, “Go ahead and take what you need. Then please leave without breaking any more of my windows. You’ll find the newest thing in the house is the stove.”

  He did not move away, or pull the flashlight from her eyes. She stared blankly and intently ahead, keen with her ears, he could tell. He examined her features for some modicum of fear, regret, even disgrace at being sightless, but saw none on Mrs. Wilcox.

  “I’m going into the bedroom. You sit still.”

  “That is my intention.”

  He made quick work of her drawers and closets. True to her word, he found no valuables or loose jewels. She had no iPod, laptop, or cell phone. She’d pared her possessions down to only furniture and items of comfort. He found her purse on the dresser table and rooted inside. Her wallet surrendered one credit card and four twenty-dollar bills. He took the cash. Credit cards were a sucker steal, a fast way to get tracked and caught. He left it.

  He didn’t bother with the guest bedroom. He returned to the den where she had not moved, her feet still up. A pang struck, widespread in his body, in his veins.

  “You’ve got to have something,” he said.

  “I don’t.”

  He raised his right hand high across his chest, above his left shoulder, and brought the knuckles down hard across her cheek. The blow knocked Mrs. Wilcox sideways in the lounger; she almost rolled off it but the arm of the chair caught her. He stood in front of her, his hand followed through high, stinging.

  “You do.”

  She righted herself in the chair. She worked her jaw and touched fingertips to the angry mark spreading on her face.

  “What I find fascinating,” she said evenly, “is that, somehow in your view, I deserved that.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be blind.”

  Lowering his hand, he backed away to the sofa. He cut off the flashlight, to sit and join Mrs. Wilcox in the darkness. They sat silently for a minute. He began to feel at a disadvantage, that she could function like this better than he.

  “Why on earth,” she said into the inky room sizzling with the aftermath of the violence, “would that matter to you?” This was no plea or whine. Mrs. Wilcox was puzzled, and figuring. “Do you know me?”

  “I know you.”

  “Were you one of my students?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I had over a thousand. Stands to reason one of you would turn out a bad penny.” She said this with her hand returned to her cheek. She nodded into the darkness that was only hers.

  He sat rigid on the sofa, afraid of her fixed stare. She cocked her head. Across the street on the ball field, a few children whooped, playing night-blind baseball. Mrs. Wilcox liste
ned to them for a few moments, perhaps trying to recognize voices.

  She spoke, still with her head tilted, as if the man across the room from her and the misbehaving children outside were no different.

  “Where did I fail you?”

  Did she just call him a failure? The notion smacked him across his own cheek. He hadn’t failed. Lousy luck, rotten economy, poor employees, greedy bankers, bad blows. These had failed him.

  “What are you going to buy with my eighty dollars? Drugs, I assume, and what else?”

  “Some food. A bus ride back downtown.”

  She shook her head at the hook rug between them. Then she seemed to understand, or unravel, something. She put clouded eyes on him.

  “Are you homeless?”

  “For now.”

  “How did that happen?”

  He did not like the question; it seemed too complex a thing to ask about so simply. He was not sitting at a little desk anymore answering her.

  “It took awhile.”

  Her cheek glared a harsh vermillion. He expected to strike her again.

  “Son, listen to me. In every life, at some point, we can’t predict when, a snapshot goes off, and there you stay. I’m seventy-seven years old now, but inside I’m just fourteen. You, I can tell, you’re still nine. You still hurt.”

  He rose to take a step toward her.

  She stopped him with an open hand. Her thin white fingers looked like pieces of chalk. “I don’t know who you are.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I don’t. Anyway, why would that be a concern? I’m blind. No court is ever going to let me be a witness.”

  He stood rooted, halfway to her in the room.

  “I can’t help you,” she said.

  These words condemned him.

  “I can’t help myself.”

  Mrs. Wilcox’s hands flew from her sides, a familiar flapping gesture from long ago, for a wrong answer.

  “Well, that’s downright ignorant, and disappointing to hear. I clearly did let you down, if that’s where your life has wound up on you. Can’t help yourself. What kind of pitiful fool did you grow into?”